A wake-up call for NHS maternity services

How shocking, when there are such concerns over the quality of maternity care (Maternity staff blunders leave NHS facing £85.8m compensation bill, 14 April), that the national confidential inquiries into maternal and perinatal deaths should be suspended. The recent review of maternal deaths published by the Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries (CMACE) raised important issues, including the need to improve clinical skills. For the past 50 years the inquiries have made a valuable contribution to improving the quality of care of pregnant women and babies. The rationale for suspension is to "review" these inquiries, but there has been no explanation for the break in continuity, which could have been avoided by CMACE continuing the work. In these troubled times for the NHS, robust, independent audit of quality of care is more crucial than ever.

• Your investigation was a wake-up call for the NHS to make improvements. However, some errors will always slip through the net. In cases such as that of Toby Hart (Case study, 14 April), who was left severely disabled as a result of negligent mistakes, it is vital that families can get compensation to help pay for the care they need. However, it is precisely cases such as Toby's that may not be able to be taken on as a result of the government's plan to take clinical negligence out of scope for legal aid. These cases are expensive to investigate, and many will simply not be able to find the legal representation they need. That is no way for a civilised society to treat people injured as a result of others' negligence, and taking away people's ability to litigate will also deprive the NHS of a powerful incentive to improve.

• In an excellent piece published on 2 January, the Observer reported warnings that the failure to deal with the shortage of midwives would continue to put at risk both professional standards and patients' lives. Now we read of the lower-than-acceptable UK record. While midwives rightly complain of not having enough time or support to meet standards, your article implies that it is the fault of midwives, rather than of policy.